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One reason why life is believed to have originated from a common ancestor is because many species of animals and plants appear to be very similar to, and therefore related to, certain other species. For example, the various species of finch on the Galapagos Islands are very similar to each other, and since they are close neighbours, it is reasonable to suppose that they stem from a single species that colonised the islands. Nowadays no one disputes that many species are related to each other. The question is, are there limits to relatedness, or did all species evolve from a common ancestor? Did microbes turn into men?
The creation account in Genesis states that God made animals 'according to their kinds'. This does not mean that God made the animals according to the species we see today. Rather, he made them with the potential to diversify into many species; all the genetic material required for such diversification was there from the beginning.
Organisms are very complex. The biblical view recognises the implications of that complexity - that it cannot have originated by chance - and offers a framework for understanding the limited evolution which we do see occurring over geological time (or can infer, as in the case of the Galapagos finches). This framework does not need to invoke natural 'miracles'; the explanation does not have to buck the invariable rule of observation, that genetic mutations do not lead to an increase in genetic complexity. After creation was finished, all significant biological change was programmed change and can be understood in purely natural terms.
The Darwinian view offers a different framework. It assumes that this complexity accumulated gradually and accidentally, with each step representing a miraculous combination of mutations along a path extending all the way from bacteria to human beings. Bacteria 'somehow' became eukaryotes. Shellfish, sponges, arthropods, worms, fish and numerous organisms that cannot be classified in relation to anything else evolved from forms that, for some reason, failed to show up in the fossil record. Fish 'somehow' acquired legs and lungs and left the water, and so on. Paradoxically, this naturalistic view requires more faith, in the sense of willingness to believe, than the biblical view.
Life is a wonderful thing, and any explanation of it cannot but involve some belief in miracles: whether at the beginning of creation or natural miracles all along the way. We prefer the view that does not impute nature itself with miraculous powers. So yes, there has been a lot of evolutionary change over time. But no, the change observed does not imply the evolution of all organisms from a common ancestor.
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